sight is exercised, about another octave of light, more or less, becomes
consciously objective: this independent activity of the etheric eyes
when it occurs may be under some control or none."
As for the objective existence of the fairy beings seen by the girls,
Gardner insisted that "all that can be photographed must of necessity
be physical. Nothing of a subtler order could, in the nature of things,
affect the sensitive plate."
Gardner maintained that "spirit" photographs, such as those pro-
duced via mediums at seances where "extra" persons appear on the plate,
necessarily imply a certain degree of materialization before the "form"
can come within the range even of the most sensitive of films.
However, he pointed out, well within our physical octave are degrees
of density that elude ordinary vision. "Just as there are many stars in the
heavens recorded by the camera that no human eye has ever seen di-
rectly, so there is a vast array of living creatures whose bodies are of that
rare tenuity and subtlety from our point of view that they lie beyond
the range of our normal senses. Many children and many sensitives see
them: hence our fairy lore-all founded on actual and now demon-
strated fact."
Gardner said fairies use bodies of a density that he would describe
in nontechnical language as of a lighter-than-gaseous nature, but he
added that it would be entirely wrong to consider them insubstantial.
"In their own way they are as real as we are, and perform functions in
connection with plant life of an important and fascinating character."
As a result of the Cottingley investigation, many clairvoyants at-
tested to both Gardner and Doyle that they had seen all sorts of nature
spirits tending to plants and vegetables, that grass and trees could
everywhere be seen pulsing to the touch of tiny workers "whose mag-
netic bodies act as the matrix in which miracles of growth and color
become possible."
Of the fairies photographed at Cottingley and of the nature spirits
described by Hodson, Doyle wrote, "It is hard for the mind to grasp
what the ultimate results may be if we have actually proved the exis-
tence upon the surface of this planet of a population which may be as
numerous as the human race, which pursues its own strange life in its
joyce
(Joyce)
#1